


Fernweh

by Selkit



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Emetophobia, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Misses Clause Challenge, Pre-Canon, Yuletide 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 02:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5522093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/pseuds/Selkit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She didn't take them. They begged her to go.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fernweh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Northland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northland/gifts).



> My recipient asked for a fic with Furiosa backstory, and this was my first attempt. I got midway through it before I realized it wasn't quite coming together the way I'd hoped it would, so I wrote a second fic that hopefully fits the bill a bit more. But I still wanted to finish and post this one as well. I hope it's still enjoyable, even if it doesn't really fit the request.
> 
> _Fernweh_ \- a longing for distant places

This is how it works:

Every evening we wait, caged up in our hole like rats hiding from a bird of prey. We try to act normally, clinging to distractions where we can find them: talking, drawing, practicing the piano. Sometimes we even sing, though it’s hard when the anxiety chokes our voices, turns the melodies to thin, high warbles. 

Some nights we sit up waiting long past midnight. The darkness falls, and we gather at the window and watch the moon travel the sky. We crane our heads, keeping it in sight until it descends past the edge of our view. It seems as though the world outside holds its breath with us, its clamoring voices and rattling gunfire giving way to an uneasy, temporary calm. 

Those are the best nights, the nights when no one comes. We cluster together in the center of the room, eyes bright, arms slung around each other, and whisper words of relief and encouragement.

But more often than not, we hear the creak of the wheel spinning, the door groaning open. And when it does, no one could _ever_ say we don’t face it bravely. We don’t scream or beg. The one selected walks out with her limbs straight and her head held high. 

And more often than not, I’m the one chosen, leaving the others behind. I won’t lie and say I never feel resentful that I’m the one who suffers the most. But over time, I’ve come to see it as a blessing in disguise. Because I can bear it. I know I can. And if I’m the one chosen, it means the others are spared. 

That’s the thought I cling to, when I walk through the tunnel night after night.

* * *

The journey from the Vault to Joe’s chambers isn’t long—never long enough—but the distance is far enough to require an escort. I’ve never been sure if it’s to keep us from attempting escape, or to prevent hungry War Boys from carrying us off to dark corners. Likely both. 

It’s always one of the Imperators, rotating in and out based on Joe’s whims. None of them much care for the duty, I know. They consider it beneath them, a waste of their skills, but Joe is Immortan and his word is law. The bile always rises in my throat at the thought, and I don’t bother hiding my disgust from the Imperators’ eyes. What can any of them do to me?

Maybe it’s that despair-fueled bravado, that knowledge of being untouchable to everyone but the worst one of all, that makes me turn to my escort one night. She walks slowly at my side, eyes fixed dead ahead, rifle cradled against her chest like it’s a beloved child rather than an instrument of death. 

She doesn’t look at me, but I look at her.

“Where are you?” I ask. 

At that, she turns her head slowly, spearing me with her eyes. She stares at me, hard and a little wary, like she’s trying to gauge whether my brains have gone addled from sun-sickness. 

I notice, for the first time, that her eyes are green. Not quite the sharp green of the plants atop the Citadel, but a muted green, like the color of water when it collects in a basin. 

“I see the look on your face while we’re walking,” I say. “Every time. Like your mind is somewhere far, far away from here. Where is it you go?”

For a moment, her face stays entirely blank, motionless, her eyes still locked on mine. Then everything hardens. Her mouth pulls in a tight line, and something dark fills her eyes, turning the water-green to mud. She says nothing, only jerks her head forward, an order that brooks no argument. I swallow a sigh. 

We continue on, and with every step we take, she keeps her face tilted away from my view.

* * *

Two nights later, she comes for me again, her fingers white on her rifle and her eyes looking right through me. I follow her down the pathway, taking in the straightedge of her spine and the rigid line of her shoulders. Bunched up muscles coil beneath the ragged edge of Joe’s brand on the back of her neck, and it looks like the flames are rippling on her skin.

I tear my eyes away, quickening my pace until I’m staring at the hard line of her jaw instead of the back of her head.

“Furiosa,” I say, because everyone knows the Imperators’ names, even those of us who spend our lives locked up inside a vault. “Where are you?”

She lengthens her stride, and I almost have to break into a trot to keep up.

“You’re not the only one, you know,” I carry on. I’m not sure if she’s even listening, but I’ve always found that once words spring to my mind, it’s hard to keep them trapped there. “I pretend I’m somewhere else, too. When I’m—”

I break off, not needing to finish. Furiosa doesn’t turn around, doesn’t look at me, but her steps slow. 

“I try to imagine the places Miss Giddy tells us about,” I say. “Places with trees and grass and flowers. And running water. She says the world used to have streams and rivers, where anyone could go and dip their toes in.” I can hear my voice turn thick with awe at the thought, but it’s also colored by bitterness, that I was born to a world where such things are nothing but distant memory. 

Furiosa says nothing, but I see her watching me out of the corner of her eye. 

“Is that what you imagine, too?” I ask. We’re almost at Joe’s door. I can see it looming, and I try to slow my steps, pushing the constant sour trepidation to the back of my head. “What is it you think about?”

She keeps staring straight ahead, wordless, until finally I hear her sigh. 

“Home,” she says. The word is little more than a breath. 

From what I can see of her face, it’s clear she isn’t talking about her quarters here in the Citadel. 

“Home,” I echo. “And is that…Valhalla?”

Her head jerks around, and the look she gives me is pure disbelief and disgust. My breath catches in my throat, my heart leaping wildly.

_She doesn’t believe his lies any more than I do._

“If not Valhalla, then what?” My mind races, my voice lowers to a hiss. “Where? A real place?”

A thousand more questions tangle in my mind, but Furiosa’s not answering, and I can’t drag my feet anymore. The door to Joe’s chamber already lies open, leaking its usual stench of rot and smoke and sweat. But I try to catch Furiosa’s eye as she turns away, desperate to seize hold of this link, however frail it is. 

“My name is Angharad,” I say, keeping my voice low enough so it doesn’t carry across Joe’s threshold.

She says nothing, but I see the brief purse of her lips, and I know that she heard me.

* * *

Weeks pass, and each time Furiosa walks me down that path, I press for answers. _Where is home for you, Furiosa? Is it real? What is it like?_

I might as well be talking to the stone walls of the Citadel. She keeps her face turned away, tight-lipped, and the metal fingers of her mechanical hand creak as they grind over her rifle. Yet she never tells me to be silent, either. I keep waiting for her patience to run dry like the rivers in Miss Giddy’s stories, bracing myself for a sudden snarl of rage, the sort of outburst her very name portends. But it doesn’t come. 

And then one morning I wake before dawn and stumble out of bed, almost tripping over The Dag’s shoes in my blind rush, and I barely make it to the toilet before I’m vomiting what feels like everything I’ve eaten in the past week. It happens again the next day, and the day after that, until I can no longer dismiss it as a passing malady. 

I can no longer hide it from _him_ , either. 

It’s the middle of the day when the vault’s door opens, and I hear Furiosa’s measured footsteps and the click of her metal fingers as she walks down the hall toward our living space. I rise from my chair and stand in the middle of the room, my chin raised, fists clenched. Something filmy and white flutters at the corner of my eye, and then Toast’s fierce dark eyes meet mine, an instant before she positions herself in front of me. Cheedo and The Dag press against my sides, and Capable comes up behind me, her arm curved around the back of my neck and her chin on my shoulder. 

Furiosa rounds the corner and stops, her eyes moving over each of us, just…watching. Cheedo huddles closer to my arm, and behind me I can feel Capable holding her breath. Her heartbeat pounds against my back like a War Party’s drummers embarking on a raid. 

Then Furiosa’s eyes meet mine and hold. 

I’m used to fielding looks from the Imperators: impatience, indifference, contempt, lust. But there’s something different in Furiosa’s eyes, something that’s neither pity nor scorn. It drives into me, steady and sure, waiting for my response.

_I could drag you from this room by force,_ it says. _But I’m giving you the choice._

It’s not a threat, just a fact, and my heart squeezes painfully in my chest. Because I don’t have a choice—none of us do—and we both know it. But Furiosa is offering me a gift in the only currency we have: the illusion of control, and of dignity. The cruel kindness of it hits me head-on, and I close my eyes, lift my hands, and gently push Cheedo and The Dag away. 

“It’s all right,” I say softly. “I’ll be all right. And I’ll be back soon.”

Toast steps back, dragging her feet, glowering mutely. Capable makes a noise of protest, but I meet her eyes, and she backs away, squeezing my arm. 

I walk out the door with Furiosa one step behind, and instead of taking the path straight to Joe’s quarters, we veer to the left, toward the Organic Mechanic’s shop.

* * *

When the Mechanic is done with me, Furiosa is waiting. She falls in step beside me, but maintains a little more distance than normal. I sense her presence only vaguely, like she’s my shadow, dark and silent and untouchable. Everything feels strange, detached, my breath coming far too fast, my stomach flipping, my hands shaking uncontrollably. It’s like I’m in a rig speeding across the desert, feeling every jostling bump deep in my bones. 

Maybe it’s the lingering horror of the Organic Mechanic’s tests, on top of everything Joe’s done to me over and over. Maybe it’s being away from my sisters, lacking both their comforting presence and the need to stay strong and poised for them. Maybe it’s the Mechanic’s confirmation that I am pregnant, and the flood of unidentifiable emotions that comes with it, or maybe it’s just my body’s response to the second life inside it—Miss Giddy tried to tell us what it would be like, but how can you really prepare for—

I can’t finish the thought. I stagger to the side of the path and drop to my knees, hearing nothing but the angry buzzing in my head and the shrill wheeze of my own breathing. By this time there’s little but bile left in my stomach, but I retch anyway, my hair falling in my face and clinging to the corner of my mouth. I try to push it away, but my shaking hands clatter uselessly against my skull. 

Focusing on anything but my malfunctioning body feels like a monumental task, and I don’t even register Furiosa on her knees beside me until I feel the brief touch of her flesh-and-blood fingers on the back of my neck. She pulls the hair out of my face and holds it away, her hand carefully avoiding the brand between my shoulders. 

“It’s green,” she says next to my ear, her voice low and rough like the crunch of tires over dirt. “Home. If you stand in the center and look every direction, you see nothing but green fields.”

My breaths still rattle in my throat, but I manage to turn my head toward her. “What? Where?”

It’s little more than a rasp, and even those two syllables are almost smothered by my throat closing against another wave of nausea. I double over again, but Furiosa bends down with me. 

“Far from here,” she says. “East.”

“But…” My head spins, but this time not from the nausea. “It’s real?”

“Yes.”

My heart pounds, and I brace myself on the ground, the dirt biting at the heels of my hands. “Green. A green place?”

“I climbed trees as a child.” Her voice sounds distant, but I can still feel her fist resting on the back of my neck. “Watered crops. We even had a few flowers.”

“Flowers?” The worst of my trembling has passed, and I ease back on my heels, staring at Furiosa. “What did they look like?”

“Bright colors.” She turns her head, looking into the distance. “Red, blue, purple.”

A green place? With trees? _Flowers?_ Understanding hits me like a dash of cold water: no one would have ever left such a place willingly. Furiosa is like one of the puzzles Miss Giddy brings us, with so many pieces missing it’s hard to figure out what the picture is supposed to be, but I feel like I’ve just filled in one of the blanks. 

“Furiosa…” I whisper. I lift a tentative hand, but before I can touch her arm, her fingers drop from the back of my neck. She pushes herself to her feet and looks down at me, impassive. 

“Let’s go,” she says. It’s more of a command than a suggestion. “You need water.” 

She turns back down the path, and I have no choice but to follow.

* * *

After that, I don’t see her again for a long time. It doesn’t make her words burn any less brightly in my mind. _Green. A green place. There’s still somewhere good left in this world._

With my pregnancy in its early stages, Joe sends for me less often, but I don’t escape his notice altogether. The next time Furiosa comes for me, my belly has just begun to curve. 

She doesn’t look at it, or me, doesn’t even glance at my face as she jerks her head toward the door. Normally she walks on my left, but this time she positions herself to my right instead, keeping the gnarled metal barrier of her mechanical hand between her and me. Her body language is as welcoming as a feral dog.

It hurts. 

“Did he punish you?” I finally ask, because I can’t stay silent, not when I’ve had nothing in my head for weeks but _green place, green place, green place._ “For helping me?”

For several moments I’m convinced she’s not going to answer, that we’re right back to the start. Then I hear her sigh, short and grated.

“I didn’t help you.”

“Yes, you did.” I quicken my steps, trying to get out far enough to catch a glimpse of her face. “The green place—do you ever think of going back there?”

Her expression twists, but it’s less anger and more exasperation, longing, and—grief? 

“All the time,” she says. It’s almost a growl.

“You’re an Imperator.” I lower my voice to just above a whisper. “You have more power than anyone here except the Immortan. You could—we could all hide in the Rig and just— _go_.”

She whirls on me, staring me full in the face, and by now I’m so used to her stiff-necked reticence that it makes me stumble back a step.

“You think I’m some kind of savior?” She bares her teeth. It’s not a smile. “Do you have any idea what an Imperator does? Or what it takes to become one?”

I’m too proud to say _no_ , so I lift my chin and match her stare. “Tell me.”

“Death,” she says, without hesitating. “No one earns the grease without being a proven killer. We do what it takes to run this place, and usually that means stopping someone else’s heart.”

For the first time, her eyes drop to the swell of my abdomen. “You, all of you locked up in the Vault, and the Milk Mothers—how do you think they come to be here? Who do you think finds them, brings them back?”

I swallow, flashing back to my own capture, to the beady eyes and iron fists of the man who dragged me away. It wasn’t until much later that I’d realized the dark stains across his forehead had any significance. “You weren’t the one who brought me here.”

“I could have been.” She steps up close enough for me to smell leather and smoke and engine grease, her face inches from mine. Her eyes are no longer calm water-green, but blazing like the wrecked heaps of cars and guzzoline that dot the sands at night. “I’m not your redeemer. I’m the reason you’re here.”

She holds my gaze, and I wait until she’s turning away before I speak.

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

She looks at me again, over her shoulder, and the fire in her eyes is gone. In its place is weariness touched with sorrow, and something that could almost be pity. 

Despite my stubbornness, I suddenly feel very small. 

“Move,” Furiosa says. Her voice is toneless. 

I fall into step behind her, swallowing down my frustrated protests.

* * *

One of the few ways I count myself lucky is that I rarely dream. Or at least, I rarely have nightmares about the things I’ve endured, which puts me in a minority among the five of us who live in the Vault. Waking to another woman’s muffled screams or thrashing feet is all too common here. 

But in recent weeks, I’ve found myself dreaming more and more, not about things that _are_ , but things that that _could_ be. In those dreams, I start out soaring high above the desert like a bird, looking down on a single spot of green blooming out of the sand. I move closer, and the shapeless green blur becomes trees and fields, rows and rows of healthy crops tended by people who love their work, not by slaves of a diseased dictator. I swoop lower still, until I can hear people talking and laughing, and listen to children playing in the rustling grass.

But try as I might, I can never catch sight of any faces. 

I lean in closer, like I do every time, but when I lift my arm to shield my eyes from the sun’s glare, something seizes my wrist. 

Maybe one of the reasons I don’t often dream is because dread makes for light sleepers.

I bolt awake, already trying to pull free of whatever imaginary vise grips my hand, lashing out with my other arm before I’m awake enough to see Furiosa at my bedside. She easily blocks my flailing hand with one arm and pins my wrist to the bed with the other. 

“Shhh,” she says, and loosens her grip on my wrist. “It’s me.”

My eyes dart to the window, then back to her. It’s that hour of the night when the sky is darkest, the moon and stars all blotted out, even the most bloodthirsty scavengers hidden away in their burrows. I ease upright and breathe deep to calm my unsteady pulse, wetting my parched lips. It’s not unheard of for Joe to send for one of us in the middle of the night, but Furiosa’s not wearing her prosthetic—or her rifle. Fleetingly, I realize it’s the first time I’ve seen her without either one.

“Why are you here?” I whisper. In the bed next to mine, Capable stirs, but does not wake. 

“We should talk.” Furiosa backs away a step, but her eyes never stray from mine. “About leaving.”

My heartbeat spikes, and it takes an effort to swing my legs over the bedside slowly instead of leaping up and tossing the covers to the other side of the room. “What are you saying? You’ll help us?”

“Shh,” she says again, her eyes as sharp as the sound. She’s not that much taller than me, but even clad in simple linen and leather with no visible weapons, the weight of her presence is impossible to deny. “If we’re gonna do this, you need to understand something. He is not going to let you go without a fight.”

“I know that—” I begin, but she lifts her hand, cutting me off.

“Do you?” Her mouth twists. “You’ve never been out there in the wastes, with the sun raising blisters on your skin and bullets flying over your head. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“You’re fond of telling me I don’t know things.” The words are shooting out before I can decide whether they’re wise or not, but I find very little room for regret. “Perhaps that’s because my entire life is spent in this room, and I only leave to be _raped_ or _experimented_ on.”

I don’t realize how heavily I’m breathing until I fall silent, and it dawns on me that that’s the only sound in the room. My fists tremble by my sides, nails scoring my palms, and thoughts dart frantically through my head as I search for some other argument I can use to persuade her—

“Okay,” Furiosa says. 

I blink. “Okay?”

“People are going to die.” She levels her gaze at me, solemn and steady. “You could be one of them.”

I lift my chin. “I know.”

She jerks her head toward the beds, lined up in a row next to mine. Capable is stirring again, her eyelids fluttering. The Dag and Cheedo are curled up together on one narrow mattress, and Toast sleeps soundly as a corpse in the farthest bed. 

_“They_ could die,” Furiosa says. There’s no softness in her voice, only cold hard reality. “Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”

My eyes linger on each of them in turn. “I wouldn’t force them to leave if they didn’t want to,” I say. “But I can persuade them to go. I know I can.”

I look back to her, expecting more skepticism or derision, but she only nods. It takes me a moment to realize: she believes me. 

I’m still adjusting to that thought, and the accompanying glow of surprised pleasure, when the bed beside mine creaks as Capable finally wakes. She sits up, several expressions cycling across her face as her groggy eyes focus on Furiosa.

“Angharad?” she murmurs, looking back and forth between us. 

The sound of her voice rouses Cheedo, the lightest sleeper of us all, and in moments all four of them are awake, throwing confused glances at each other, slowly drawing closer with the caution of hunted animals.

“It’s all right.” I beckon them towards me, resting an encouraging hand on Cheedo’s arm. “Furiosa’s going to help us.” I lower my voice. “She knows of a green place, and she’s going to take us there.”

For a moment, silence falls. Dag, predictably, breaks it.

_“Green_ place?” She tilts her head, mussed yellow hair falling across her face. “Where? And who lives there?”

“My people,” Furiosa says simply. She turns her head a fraction, her eyes finding me. “The Many Mothers.”

A rustle of murmurs passes through the other women, until Cheedo raises her high, thin voice: “Are _you_ a mother?”

The room goes still again, quiet gripping like a fist. I half expect Furiosa to lock herself away behind a mask of stone and stride from the room, but she doesn’t move. She turns away from me, looking toward Cheedo, and the dim lamplight flickers on her face.

“No,” she says. 

Dag bumps Cheedo with her shoulder, kindly. “It’s probably a figure of speech.”

“We have clans,” Furiosa speaks up, startling everyone back into silence. “Each headed by an Initiate Mother. That’s where the name comes from.”

“Were you one?” I ask. “An Initiate Mother?”

She looks at me, and her face is unreadable once more, but somehow I don’t feel threatened.

“I never got the chance,” she says. 

A flood of questions rises in my mind, and I can tell from their faces that the others are thinking the same, but Furiosa is already turning toward the door.

“I’ve been here too long.” She seeks me out, jerking her head toward the door—unnecessarily. I’m already following her. “This isn’t going to happen soon. It will take a lot of planning and a lot of time. I’ll inform you when I can. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” My heart is racing, but for the first time in as long as I can remember, it’s with anticipation and hope instead of fear. “Furiosa…thank you.”

She looks at me for a long, wordless moment, something inscrutable crossing her face. I wait, watching her lips part like she’s going to speak, but she only exhales, and finally turns away. 

But at least for this moment, I can’t find it in me to mind her silence. As the door shuts behind her, with a muted click instead of a resounding bang, I close my eyes and return to the green place from my dreams, filling it with faces of my own.


End file.
